Breadcrumb Trail Links

Doug Camilli: House of Cards goes punk: Pussy Riot to make an appearance

Author of the article:

News Desk

Publishing date:

August 12, 2014 • 2 minute read

Looking westward from the northern tip of the park in the late afternoon.

Waiting impatiently for “season” three of House of Cards? Me too, even more now that we know members of the Russian protest/punk/feminist band Pussy Riot will appear in it.

The show is filming in Baltimore, where the weekly City Paper says Nadezhda Tolokonnikova and Maria Alyokhina have been spotted on the show’s set. The producers confirm that the two will appear in the Kevin Spacey drama.

Both women were released last December after serving almost two years for their part in a protest against KGB-man-turned-president Vladimir Putin.

* * *

Meanwhile Mickey Rourkewon’t be joining any anti-Putin protests. He was spotted in Moscow the other day wearing a T-shirt showing Putin surrounded by flowers; it’s a best-seller at the GUM department store.

The Independent, reporting this, quotes him: “I have a Russian girlfriend, that’s all I care about. Her father is a good person, her mother’s great, her babushka’s wonderful. To me it’s all about family. I don’t give a (bad word) about the politics.” (The lady, model Anastassija Makarenko, lives in L.A.)

But Rourke added this: “If I didn’t like (Putin), I wouldn’t buy the T-shirt, believe me. I met him a couple of times and he was a real gentleman … he is a good guy.”

My guess: Ana’s father is a player in Putin’s nomenklatura.

Mickey’s 61. Anastassija is under 30.

* * *

Tobacco, check. Alcohol, sure.Sugar and salt, maybe. But does chocolate need health warnings on the label?

Sir Ranulph Fiennes thinks so. The British adventurer learned last year that he’s in the first stages of type-2 diabetes, and he’s blaming chocolate he ate long ago, the Telegraph reports.

“Cigarettes say ‘smoking kills,’ so chocolate bars should have ‘chocolate gives you diabetes’ on them,” he said. Young people, in particular, “should be made aware of the dangers. Certainly, when I was growing up, I did not know that eating a bar a day would put me at risk for diabetes.”

He’s 70.

* * *

Gwyneth Paltrow may be dating somebody else, but she and Chris Martin are vacationing very close together on Long Island, as their “conscious uncoupling” crawls along.

The N.Y. Post says the two have rented places in Amagansett, a short walk apart. They’re visiting local restos together with their kids, and attended some summer theatre production as a couple.

* * *

Quote of the day:New Yorker writer and Toronto resident Malcolm Gladwell, appearing on the BBC Radio’s long-running music Desert Island Discs, chose Marvin Gaye’s version of the U.S. national anthem, The Star Spangled Banner, as his final record.

He said Gaye “was probably high” when recording, “and he is doing this bizarre thing to the song.”

Gladwell went on this way about the lyrics: “It is only when you hear the song out of context you realize what a nasty piece of work the American national anthem is. They’re blowing stuff up. This is their national anthem, it’s about rockets and bombs. Do you need better insight into the heart of the American soul?”